The Return of the Recap 8

This week’s Terribad had a Shrek-clone. Fun.

The summer season is winding down. I have a fall preview post written, but haven’t posted for the dumbest reason. Maybe next week. I also have something big later this week that is hanging on my mind, but enough about real life. This is the recap of everything I watched this week. I officially gave up on Lagrange, as it was becoming too frustrating to watch, even with just 3 episodes remaining. I prefer not to chase lost causes, “like Koichoco,” I didn’t add.

Currently Airing Top 5

Ordering something to be shipped to a secret base. Great idea.

Sengoku Collection

This series is heading to it’s conclusion, and the penultimate episode focused on…focus. In this case, Yoshimoto Imagawa (she of the gravity defying military uniform) as she desires to fight Nobunaga. The focus portion of the episode comes into play when she becomes obsessed with catching a giant golden fish. She pours all of her effort into researching how to catch fish and how her own mentality in catching it. By the end, she has regained her focus to try to defeat Nobunaga. On the other hand, Nobunaga appeared to be slacking, but the next episode is all about her.

This outfit is entirely practical because it allows gravity to be defied.

Interestingly, the last episode is titled “Sengoku Collection.”. It undoubtedly doesn’t really mean anything, but I am a fan of episode titles that match the name of a series.

No, don’t do that. You’re going to make me want to do that too.

Humanity Has Declined

While I have heard much about how Watashi is the last human and that this whole series is a delusion, I generally have a different take on it. The last episode ultimately sees the school close as the population simply won’t support it any longer. There are tears everywhere as the mystery of the fairies remains unsolved. The part about the rest of the club being crazy really wasn’t of that much interest. Yet, I was sad to see this show end.

For the most part, it did feel like it was a bunch of ideas thrown together. The chronological structure did seem like it was designed to create the idea behind the main character, if that makes any sense. The early episodes were cynical and pointed out the absurdities of modern life. Where that personality came from was tapping into naivety. The fairies always had an outside view of the world free of any socializing with other people, with abilities that were not restricted by what anyone thought they could do.

I guess ultimately, I think this ended up being a story of distractions from the world. Humanity became to attached to its sense of greatness. Y was attached to her books about males becoming more than friends. Watashi’s grandfather was attached to ancient technology. The probes were attached to the idea of Earth as a warm place. As for Watashi, she had the fairies, who kept her detached from everything else, but gave her perspective on what was important. (84.46/100)

Why did this have to be the part where the animation budget was slashed?

Hyouka

The scene at the very end really captured what I thought of this series. Hotarou delivers the perfect response to Chitanda talking about her future and it’s also effectively a marriage proposal. However, he can’t put himself up to delivering it. That isn’t to say that this show left a lot on the table, but rather it settled for the safe and mundain over excitement.

My knowledge of modern mystery fiction undoubtedly has several holes in it, but it generally seems as though there is a heavy emphasis on putting characters in risk. By setting this in the most boring part of the country, it took that edge away. The risks in Hyouka were pretty much limited to losing money on the anthologies, and simply not solving mysteries. Sometimes contrivance can be a good thing; the last several episodes were good at that, but at its core the stories went the dull route too often. (73.28/100)

I could train like this for weeks.

Space Brothers

It’s yet another transitional episode this week as Hibito heads to Cape Canaveral twice in 2 weeks. Mutta, meanwhile, does some training with some montages showcasing his memory skills.While the prospect of the interview looms, I think I got more out of the final minute of this episode when the rest of the candidates were about to fly out from Japan. Mutta’s parents were busy embarrassing themselves, and their praising of Serika in no way reveals his interest in her. Also, I really could have done without the breaking of the fourth wall at the end of the episode.

I’m just going to happily troll everyone sitting at this table

Kokoro Connect

This would normally be the point where a reality show was heading toward cancellation. Heartseed 2’s contrivance looks to have been spoiled by Taichi expressing his relief at solving Aoki and Yui’s feelings. The list of things that is bothering me continues to pile up. Mainly, how anyone outside of this group doesn’t seem to care that something is off with all of them. They are spending their winter break on a construction site or ducking out for overnight trips up north. As for Taichi, he has the situation where he could be able to doge questions by using Iori and Inaba’s feelings for him. He’s going to spill the beans, though. Fortunately, there’s always a 2nd chance in this game.

The Rest of the Week

Those girls have sick, twisted minds to think Cinque would do this.

Dog Days’

The action is clearly winding down now as the goodbyes are being prepared so Cinque, Becky and Nanami can return another day. This episode was really about Becky showcasing herself as a hero in the end. The majority of the action, though, was about Noir, Cou and Rico getting themselves stuck in an endless series of traps. Sadly, the best joke in this episode involves Cinque wearing Becky’s outfit. Maybe next week’s finale will be better.

The Updated Seasonal Ranking

Season Rank	Year Rank	Change	Anime
1	2	–	Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
2	3	↑1	Sengoku Collection
3	8	↓2	Kokoro Connect
4	11	–	Moyashimon Returns
5	17	–	Uchuu Kyoudai
6	20	↑1	Hyouka
7	21	↓1	Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate
8	29	↓1	Dog Days’

Also to clarify a point that came up in my comments for last week’s and since the end of the season is here. I have my updated “series as a whole” rankings as well, which includes OVAs and any sort of garbage that counts on MAL included:

Season Rank	Year Rank	Anime
1	2	Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
2	11	Moyashimon Returns
3	17	Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai! Special
4	31	Nazo no Kanojo X OVA
5	33	To Heart2: Dungeon Travelers
6	34	Asa Made Jugyou Chu!
7	40	Queen’s Blade Rebellion vs. Hagure Yuusha no Estetica

Terribad

I’m so sad because my girlfriend is a penis tentacle monster. But I’m more sad about the fact my Youtube video was pulled because I used unlicensed music.

Dark Cat

The joke while watching this was that the guy who is the romantic interest of the girl who turns into a giant tentacle penis monster sounded like a guy doing let’s play videos on Youtube with a terrible mic. That may be the only time that last sentence is ever written by the way. The plot for this particular edition of terribad revolves around two cat spirits that turn into high school students to try to defeat the aforementioned monster and the one who created it.

Getting to the typical love solves everything ending takes more effort than it should for just 50 minutes. First, one needs to suffer through terrible audio like mentioned earlier. In addition, it seemed like there were two women who recorded the entire female cast, and only played those roles based on varying degrees of apathy. All the while, the writing failed to take into account what was actually happening. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s close to it. (16.2/100)